The present invention relates to a process for recovering a uranium containing concentrate and a purified phosphoric acid from a wet process phosphoric acid containing uranium. The wet process phosphoric acid is treated with a precipitant in the presence of a reducing agent and an organic dispersant. The resultant precipitate is then separated out with the phosphoric acid being recovered from the remaining mixture of phosphoric acid and dispersant.
A related process is disclosed in U.S. Defensive Publication No. T970,007 where the organic dispersant is a water miscible organic solvent, such as methanol, ethanol, and/or isopropanol, and the precipitant is ammonia or an ammonium salt. The uranium is recovered by a known method from the uranium containing precipitate which is formed. The solvent used, e.g., methanol is recovered by distillation and rectification, and is recycled.
One major disadvantage of the process disclosed in U.S. Defensive Publication No. T970,007 is that for effecting a satisfactory precipitation of the uranium from the phosphoric acid very large quantities of ammonia and/or ammonium salts are needed. This results in a relatively high proportion of the phosphoric acid being bound as ammonium phosphate. Furthermore, the ammonium phosphate is so contaminated that it is usually only suitable for use as a fertilizer. In addition, the amount of the phosphate precipitate containing the uranium is fairly large, which means the processing of the precipitate is also rather costly. Another major disadvantage of the process disclosed in U.S. Defensive Publication No. T970,007 is that very large quantities of solvent are needed. The solvent must be recovered through, for example, distillation and rectification which means considerable capital expenditures for equipment as well as increased energy consumption during the solvent recovery steps. Necessarily, these steps result in some losses of solvent.